


What if a Frog-Eating Gnu Gets Him?

by ermengarde



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Animal Transformation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8839219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ermengarde/pseuds/ermengarde
Summary: Gerard is not going to start worrying yet, he's not officially allowed to for another four hours, he's just going to hang out here unobtrusively watching... It's not creepy, and neither is the underwear thing.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [johanirae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johanirae/gifts).



> For Johanirae, I went with a trope you suggested and a bit of tumblr stalking for inspiration, so I hope you like this (and I'd just like to take a moment to say how much I admire your art ♥)
> 
> To my cheerleader - you're a gift to me ♥

Gerard is _not_ going to start worrying yet. It’s way too early, he’s not officially allowed to be worried that Frank’s missing until Frank’s been missing for _at least_ twelve hours (six if Frankie’s sick, immediately if Frankie’s late for soundcheck or a show) and he’s only been gone four so far. 

 

It’s just that there was that Witch Lady and Frank was _Frank_ in her general direction, and what if he’s been turned into a frog? Like, Frank would totally be a cute frog and Gerard’s sure that they could turn him back and everything, but, like, what if a frog-eating gnu gets him? 

 

Gerard brain-glares at his mental Mikey. A frog-eating gnu is totally a thing. Could totally be a thing… actually what even is a gnu? 

 

But anyway, Gerard _isn’t_ worried. He’s just, like, sitting in the shady bit of the patio at the door to their hotel so he can see Frankie as soon as he gets back and _tell_ him that.

 

Gerard calls Grant while he’s waiting. It’s nice to be in the same time zone as Grant, even though Grant’s still fucking light-years away in Scotland… not that Grant keeps, like office hours or anything, but it’s nice not to have to try and add, or subtract, or whatever the fuck to know if it’s 7am or whatever.

 

“Gerard! How ya doing?”

 

“Uh. Good. We’re staying in this, like, castle kind of place? Or like Downton Abbey maybe? It’s cool, there’s a fucking awesome music room and I think Ray wants to marry it.”

 

Grant laughs, he knows how Ray gets. “You must get him to come up here, there’s a church just up in Dunoon that’s got a cracking warm acoustic that he’d love.”

 

“They won’t try and burn us as Demons or anything? The Calvinistic Scots..?” Gerard’s heard tales, mostly from Grant complaining that people don’t understand about his magick.

 

Grant snorts. “No, no, this lot are ‘Piskies, they’re too civilised for all a’that. They _might_ offer you a scone right enough, and I’m not sure that that isn’t a cruel and unusual punishment.”

 

Gerard giggles. Punishment by baked goods sounds kind fun. “Ummm.”

 

“Spit it out, Gerard – I know you didn’t call just to discuss acoustic spaces.”

 

Gerard is affronted. “I might have!”

 

Grant snorts again. Gerard really needs to tell him what an unattractive habit it is. “But you didnae.”

 

“I think Frank might have been turned into a frog, and I wanted to know what to do.”

 

“I… okay. Not what I was expecting, but I probably have…” Grant goes all quiet and muffled, and then he curses loudly as there’s a clatter. “Oh fucking come _on_. Come here you brute!” There’s a scuffling noise and Grant is suddenly loud in Gerard’s ear again. “Sorry, I dropped the phone, anyway, I’ve got a wee thing that might help. I take you’ve got one of Frank’s personal effects?”

 

“Uhh.” Gerard checks his pockets. Stupid jacket has 900 million of the fucking things, but he finds Frankie’s lucky pink underwear in the inside left pocket. He’s pretty sure they’re clean. “Yeah, I do.”

 

“Good, okay, well, what you need to do is….”

 

Grant launches into a long description of a ritual, involving holding Frank’s underwear, or tucking them next to his heart, and some words to recite and images to hold in his head. 

 

Gerard, now that he’s sober anyways, is pretty good at following instructions and he’s never really given a fuck if people think that he’s weird, so he does the ritual and flops back into the patio chair. There. Even if that lady _did_ turn Frankie into a frog, he should be totally fine now.

 

Twenty minutes later, Frank kind of scurries from the treeline over to the patio and sits on Gerard’s knee. There is chocolate _all over his face_.

 

“Uhh, you got, uhhh, a little…” Gerard gestures at Frank’s face. “There.”

 

“Huh?” Frank wipes his cheek with his hand. “Oh. Right. Yeah.” He wipes both hands over his face and licks them clean. It’s kinda _weird_.

 

"There's this tent…” Frank gestures over behind the trees, “and man, it is _full_ of cake. Like. Taller than me cake. English people are fucking crazy but they sure as hell make a good cake.”

 

The word cake doesn't even sound real anymore and cake bigger than Frank is kind of...unimaginable... “Were they, like, trying for a world record, or..?” Gerard's stomach rumbles, huge chocolate cake does sound _good_.

 

“Uh…” Frank looks suddenly puzzled. “I didn’t see any people?”

 

“You broke into someone’s tent and _stole their giant chocolate cake?_ ”

 

“No! Uh…” Frank waves his hands around and looks actually-innocent-surprised (Gerard’s seen Frank’s not-at-all-innocent-pretending-to-be-surprised face enough times to know that for sure). “It, uh, it was there and food and that’s…uh…” Frank waves his hands around again and there’s a sudden pop and Frank is gone, replaced by a squirrel. Gerard can feel its tiny claws through his pants and it's like really bad fucking trip.

 

"Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” Gerard’s heart is _racing_ and he wants to jump up out of his chair, but then he might knock Frankie onto the floor, and Frankie is so tiny and soft and breakable right now and… SquirrelFrank runs up Gerard’s chest and pulls on his ear.

 

Gerard tries to speak and realises that he’s hyperventilating. He puts his hands over his mouth, like his therapist taught him, and breathes the same air in and out again and again until his heart calms down and his chest gets less tight.

 

“Okay, Frankie, I’m okay, you’ll be.” Gerard lets out a huge breath. “You’ll be okay. I just need to do Grant’s ritual again.”

 

It is amazing how obvious it is when a squirrel is laughing at you.

 

Gerard is very, very good at ignoring Frank laughing at him, he has _practised_ and he knows that Frankie doesn’t really mean it… like, it’s like when Mikey does it, it’s because Frankie loves him. With sarcasm and mocking. 

 

The ritual is easier the second time around, and Gerard runs through it in ten minutes. Nothing happens for a few moments, and Gerard’s beginning to wonder if he did it wrong, and then there’s a weird pop, like he’s yawned during takeoff or something, and Frank is perched on his knee, full human sized.

 

“Why do you have my underwear in your pocket, Gee?”

 

“Uuh, I needed something for the ritual?” Which doesn’t explain why they were in there in the first place, but Frank doesn’t need to know that.

 

“Huh. And you just happened to be able to put your hands on my underwear?”

 

“Ummm.” Gerard doesn’t really have an answer to that one, but… “It _worked_ didn’t it?”

 

Frankie starts giggling.

 

 

After some experimentation back in Gerard’s room, they work out that Frank only turns back into a squirrel if he _thinks_ about it. Which…. Frank is not impressed.

 

“It’s like asking me not to think about pink fucking elephants. And where do my fucking clothes go?” Frank rants, before there’s yet another fucking _pop_ and he’s all fluffy tail and whiskers. 

 

Gerard’s pretty sure he could do the ritual in his sleep by now. He does it again and one weird take-off pop later Frank’s got opposable thumbs. “We’re going to have to tell Ray and Mikey, Frankie.”

 

“Wha..!” _Pop!_. Frank continues chittering at him – it’s a much less squeaky noise than Gerard would have thought, but it doesn’t mean he understands it.

 

“No, dude, I don’t speak squirrel. Just, like, what if I’m not around and you get all fluffy? Ray and Mikey need to know how to help you out. Plus, like, your tail’s totally like Ray’s hair.”

 

Frank might not be able to speak English when he’s in squirrel form, but he manages to convey exactly what he thinks of that idea by running up Gerard’s arm, tugging on his hair and chittering very loudly in his ear. Gerard would totally pick Frankie up and put him over on the other side of the room, but he’s worried about being too rough. Frank’s so small. He calls Mikey and puts his hand over the ear than Frank is trying to yell into. 

 

“Hey Mikes, can you come to my room?”

 

_“Uh, yeah, I guess? I was gonna go down and hang with the film crew in the bar, but, sure.”_

 

“Film crew?” Gerard will never stop being amazed at how easily Mikey gets to know people. Like, he’s got friends, or at least acquaintances, or people who he’s hooked up with and kept on good terms with everywhere. And then he meets new people through those people and… Gerard’s pretty sure that eventually Mikey will actually just know everyone in the world.

 

_“Yeah, Devon, you know, Jack’s friend from Warped with the Doctor Who shirts? He’s doing something with lighting for a TV show over here, and he said they’re all just going to hang out tonight before filming starts again tomorrow.”_

 

“Oh, cool, I think I remember – the one with the Daleks, right?”

 

 _“Yeah.”_ There’s an almost stereo banging on the door and then Mikey hangs up. “So, what’s up?” Mikey asks as Gerard lets him in the room.

 

“Umm.” Gerard is not at all sure how to explain that Frankie’s now a weresquirrel, so he just points and mutters “S’Frank.”

 

“Frank’s a _squirrel_?!?”

 

“Weresquirrel. There’s a ritual, I can turn him back.”

 

“Huh.” Mikey goes over and scritches Frank on the head. Frank shamelessly rubs up against Mikey’s hand. “So why is he all fluffy right now?”

 

“I keep turning him back, but any time he thinks about it, _pop!_ and he’s a squirrel again. It’s tiring.”

 

“Still. Like, what if the morphic resonance means he has to stick like that if he’s a squirrel for too long?”

 

“Fuck.” Gerard slumps back onto the bed beside Frank. He hadn’t even _thought_ about that, and it makes a lot of fucking sense… Frankie’s super fucking smart, but squirrels have tiny little heads and nowhere for all of Frank’s brains to _go_. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it again and you can watch and do it next time, right?”

 

“Sure.” Mikey gets out his phone and starts recording. Mikey’s smart like that.

 

Mikey starts talking about how the Misfits are shit as soon as Frank’s human again, because Mikey is a genius and Frankie will be too fucking busy arguing to think about his squirrel problem for at least ten minutes. 

 

Gerard goes to the bathroom for some privacy and calls Grant again. “Hi, uh, Frank keeps turning back.”

 

“Eesh.” Grant sucks air in through his teeth. “Sounds like he’s got some recompense to make – has Frank pissed anyone off recently?”

 

“Like, more than usual?”

 

Grant snorts. Again. Gerard could totally get a complex if he wasn't too busy worrying about Frank. “Probably, aye.”

 

“Yeah, there was an old lady… and he stole some cake from this tent, like, when he was a squirrel the first time, I think. He turned back when he thought about before, so, I think that might, like…”

 

“Sounds like that’s your answer… and pissing off old ladies is never a good plan.” "No, no... Elena would have kicked his ass for that. Thanks Grant." 

 

"Nae bother, speak to you later Gee."

 

Gerard gets his biggest sketchpad out of his case and props it up on the dressing table, then he pulls out his _good_ markers. They’re going to need a war room. 

 

Obviously any good war room needs Ray. Ray is fucking awesome at tactics and shit, and anyway, Ray’s the best person to come up with a squirrel-related contingency for doing the show. Frank turns back into a squirrel less than two minutes into ranting about why Ray shouldn’t be told. Mikey and Gerard silently agree to just keep him like that until Ray arrives, because the danger of increased squirrel brains is probably worth the easier explanation and one less doing of the ritual... It’s not like they’re _sure_ it’ll damage Frank anyway.

 

Ray takes for fucking _ever_ to answer his phone, because he’s been working on some new music and he can’t hear it buzz through the headphones. Gerard sends up a quick prayer of thanks that Christa made him buy one that’s got a really strong vibrate, or he’d never have answered at all. He only takes moments to come to Gee’s room though, and he’s obviously been running. 

 

“What’s, what’s wrong?” Ray pants when Gerard opens the door. 

 

“Um.” Gerard still doesn’t have a good way of explaining it, so he just points at Frankie again. “Frank got cursed or something.”

 

Ray looks at Gerard with the same face he used to have when Gee was trying to reassure him that the pills weren’t going to affect the performance, and Gerard’s stomach flips sourly. 

 

“No, I….” Gerard grabs Ray’s arm and pulls him into the room. “Do the ritual Mikey.”

 

“Okay. But we need to get something less gross than Frank’s underwear.”

 

Ray watches Mikey open-mouthed, and when Frank reverse-take-off-pops back into his own body, Ray’s jaw about hits the floor. It’s kind of impressive.

“Uh. Okay…” Ray doesn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off of Frankie, but he flails his arm towards Gerard, “You, uh, you’ve spoken to Grant about this, right?”

 

Mikey rolls his eyes. “Duh. Who do you think came up with the ritual to turn him back?”

 

Gerard nods. “Yeah, and he has an idea about how to make it permanent, too. So…”

 

“Thank fu…… _pop_.”

 

Mikey scritches Frank’s head. “Which I think we need to do before Tuesday. He can’t soundcheck like this.”

 

"Right. Right, okay, shit. Uh. Yeah. Gee, what’s Grant’s idea?” Ray’s started pacing the room.

 

“We’ve got to find the old lady that Frank pissed off before, and replace the cake he stole.” 

 

Gerard writes down _Old Lady_ and _cake_ in green marker. 

 

“Cake?” Ray asks.

 

“Chocolate cake, I think, or... Red Velvet, maybe? Something sort of browny, anyway. Um. He said there was a tent over through the trees somewhere.” Gerard gestures towards where Frank came from. Probably. No one can see through the walls, anyway.

 

“We should get flowers and groceries.” Mikey says, fluffing Frank’s tail gently with one finger. Frank is _preening_. “Old ladies like flowers and they always need help carrying groceries.”

 

“And cake?” Ray asks. Ray looks beyond confused.

 

“Umm.” Gerard bites his lip. He’s pretty sure that the cake that Frankie ate wasn’t, like, a standard kind of grocery store cake. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing people would have in a tent in the grounds of, like, an English stately home. “I think, maybe, like, a butler needs to make it or something?”

 

“What?” Ray is getting very high pitched.

 

“Gerard thinks we’re in Downton Abbey.” Mikey says. “And it would be the cook lady, or the maid woman who went to the village school? Not a fucking butler. Butlers answer doors and, like, kill people. Anyway, we should ask Frank what kind of cake it is. We can turn him back, Ray can learn the ritual and when he has to do it again once we’ve found out if we need to bake or whatever I can go and get something not underwear.”

 

“I do not think we’re in Downton." Gerard protests. "I’d really like to meet Lady Crawley though…” Lady Crawley is fucking awesome. Gerard kind of wants to be her when he grows up.

 

“Can we bring Frank into the conversation please?” Ray looks pained. Like he does when they start talking about Mom’s chore rota or…

 

“Oh, yeah, sure. I can do it Mikey, if you wanna go and get something from Frankie’s room?”

 

“I don’t know where his pockets are.” Mikey picks Frank up and turns him over. Frank bites Mikey’s thumb, but it doesn’t look like he bites _hard_ and Mikey doesn’t even drop him. “I think you need to turn him back first. Then I can get his key.” 

 

Gerard writes down _Pockets????_ and grabs Frank’s underwear. It’s his turn to do the ritual anyway.

 

Once they teach Ray the ritual, and Mikey gets some family pictures from Frank’s room, they get right down to making a plan. 

 

Gerard was there when Frankie was Frankie in the general direction of the old lady, so he does his best Police ID picture of her while Ray and Mikey try and find out what kind of cake it was, keep on turning Frank back and Mikey downloads half a season of some weird cartoon about a penguin to keep Frank Frank-shaped for as long as possible while the rest of them try and find the lady and the cake owners.

 

Ray sets up a schedule for them all to go back and check on Frank, and to turn him back if they need to. "Frank's squirrely enough without morphic resonance getting in on it. Are your cellphones both charged?"

 

Mikey pulls his out of his pocket and squints at it. "About half."

 

"And yours, Gee..?" Ray looks at him, expectantly.

 

"Oh! Oh, umm." Gerards's not actually sure where his phone _is_ , like it's definitely somewhere here, because he called Grant not _that_ long ago, but he's not attached to it like Mikey is. It's probably not that charged, either. He looks around, hoping that he's put it down somewhere in plain sight. That sometimes happens…

 

"I think you left it in the bathroom, Gee." Mikey is petting Frank's hair like it's still a tail, and Frank is still kind of preening. They definitely need to get Frankie completely turned back before he starts, like, hoarding nuts for winter.

 

"Thanks Mikey. " Gerard checks the bathroom, his phone is sitting in the sink and has about three fourths of its charge left. He brings it out into the bedroom and checks it against the TV. "Hey, I remembered to put it on the right time!"

 

Ray pats his shoulder. "I think, maybe, the network does that? But good job finding it."

 

Gerard knows that he should probably feel a little patronised, but, honestly? It's just really nice to have Ray be pleased with him. He smiles at Ray. "So, I think I should probably go and try and find the lady?"

 

Ray nods, yes. "Sounds good, and I'm gonna go and investigate the tent, Mikey do you wanna..."

 

"I'm gonna go and talk to the film crew. Like, a big tent? That sounds like it's something to do with them. I'll turn Frankie back before I go, though." 

 

Gerard heads back to the summer house where he and Frank saw the old lady, and where Frankie maybe laughed at her hat. It had been a totally epic hat, but, like, a little, kinda... Frankie shouldn't have laughed, but it had really just been the _surprise_.

She isn't there when he arrives, and he can't help feeling a little disappointed. There's a bench though, facing a pond, so he takes a seat. He's got forty five minutes until Ray's rota means he needs to go back and check on Frank, and he's not got any better ideas, so he settles down to watch the ducks. 

 

Ducks are fucking fascinating. Gerard's half-tempted to draw a comic about the one that seems to be swimming backwards - it's totally challenging duck social norms, it's fucking awesome. His fingers twitch for a marker, but before he can start going through all his pockets and end up drawing all over his hand (again), the old lady comes around the corner - hat intact - and sits on the end of his bench.

 

"Ummm." Gerard is not really sure how to have this conversation, he should have prepared a script or something. "Ma'am?"

 

The old lady starts rooting around in her purse and completely ignores him.

 

"Um, excuse me ma'am?" He raises his voice a little, he's not the best at judging speaking volume, and perhaps she's a little deaf. He shuffles along the bench slightly towards her.

 

Eventually the old lady pulls a paper bag out of her purse. She holds it out towards him. "Would you like a chocolate lime?"

 

Gerard looks at the bag, chocolate limes seem to be some kind of lurid green candy in individual plastic wrappers. "Uh. Sure, uh, yeah, thank you." The candy makes a very satisfactory crinkling noise as he unwraps it. 

 

The old lady nods, unwraps her own candy and starts sucking on it, noisily. 

 

Chocolate limes are kinda sour, and the candy is rough against his tongue and Gerard can't resist biting in to it. "Oh!" The chocolate is inside and it just goes _really well_ with the sour outside. "That's really good."

 

The old lady nods again. "So much better than those old people nonsense sweeties and almost as good as a quarter of boilings."

 

Gerard smiles at her, hoping he looks friendly and unthreatening. He's pretty sure she didn't just threaten to take him away and boil him, but he's really not sure what she _did_ say. 

 

"You'll be here about your friend, then?"

 

"Umm."

 

"I can see the dustings of a ritual all over you, boy."

 

"Yeah..." Gerard feels his smile become more and more fixed on his face.

 

"Do you think he's learned his lesson?"

 

"I... Frankie has a good heart, ma'am, he just... sometimes he...." Gerard trails off. Frank _does_ have a good heart, but he gets carried away, and good doesn't mean _nice_ necessarily.

 

"Just sometimes he doesn't think before he acts?" The old lady looks right into Gerard's _soul_ , it feels like. 

 

Gerard shivers, and nods yes unhappily. 

 

"Then your friend needs to learn to apologise."

 

"And then he'll be better?"

 

The old lady stops looking at Gerard and stats rummaging through her bag again. "Yes, I think I that would be suitable."

 

"Will you be here, for like, a little while?" It'll take him five minutes to go and get Frankie and he might have to do the ritual again and he doesn't want to miss her and have Frank be stuck for longer. 

 

"I'll be here." She pulls a newspaper out of her purse, and folds it up so that the crossword is on top. "As long as you're going to go and get him now, and don't intend to sit around here watching me do my puzzles all day."

 

Gerard starts, "Um, no, I'll go and get him. Thank you."

 

Frank is still human when Gerard gets back to his room. 

 

"Do you know this program?" Frank asks, pointing at the laptop. "It's _trippy as fuck_ and it's for kids. The penguins keep _honking_ at each other."

 

"...No. But, uh, you can tell me about it while we walk down to the pond?"

 

Frank narrows his eyes. "Will there be penguins there?" 

 

"I don't think so, we're in, like, England and I don't think they're native. There are ducks, they're cool."

 

Frank starts muttering under his breath, but he stands up and comes with Gerard down to the pond. By the time they get there Gerard is fully versed in all things Pingu, and slightly disturbed, but Frank's managed to stay Frank-shaped so he figures it's worth the potential nightmares.

 

As they come round the corner of the summer house, Frank starts, obviously seeing that the old lady is there, but he doesn't turn into a squirrel. 

 

Gerard turns to look at him. "Uh, this is the...."

 

"Yeah." Frank takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders and walks up to the lady. "I'm sorry. I was rude, and my mom would be kicking my ass half way to Alaska. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings - really I didn't, I just... look, I was jetlagged and the caterers brought way too much cheese and that just... It's not an excuse, I was wrong. I'm sorry."

 

Frank looks really, properly, contrite. It's an expression that Gerard hasn't seen since he destroyed Bob's kit on live T.V..

 

"Hmm." The old lady purses her lips and and looks Frank up and down. "Well, you've got good friends who look out for you, young man, and that generally means something, but you were _terribly_ rude."

 

"'m sorry." Frank is visibly shrinking under her gaze.

 

"Well, repeatedly turning into Sciurus Carolinensis can do that to a person." She sighs, deeply. "I'm just not sure that you're truly, actually, sorry." She makes a sucking noise through her teeth. Frank squirms from foot to foot.

 

"I think what we'll do is give you a geas. If you're as decent as your young man over there thinks that you are, then you'll be fine. If not... well you'll learn the art of a heartfelt apology or I'm sure you suit a tail." She smiles. "As I said, though, if you are as your friend believes you to be, and there's nothing in your intention that I wouldn't like, then you'll be absolutely fine."

 

"I..." Frankie is still squirming, and he looks so very young that Gerard just wants to give him a hug. 

 

He doesn't, though, he stays back and lets the old lady stare Frank down. It seems safer for everyone that way even though his fingers are practically twitching to reach out. 

 

"Okay. You go back to where ever you came from with your friend and ask him to speak to whoever taught him magic about what a geas is. It was... entertaining, meeting you Frank Iero."

 

Frank and Gerard stand, watching her gather up her things and walk away. She is well out of sight before anyone speaks.

 

"How the fuck did she know my name?" Frank turns and looks at Gerard. "Did you tell her?"

 

"No. Maybe she watches MTV?"

 

"Dude, no one watches MTV, especially not... uhh... ladies of a certain age." Frank freezes and then feels around by his butt and lets out a sigh of relief. 

 

"Well, maybe she read your soul or something..."

 

Frank stares are Gerard, wide-eyed.

 

"I think that would be okay.. she's, like Chaotic Good, I think - like, she's not lawful or whatever, but the heart of what she does is for Good? I don't think she'd misuse her power." Gerard definitely thinks that she's more Good than Neutral, anyway, and definitely not Evil. 

 

"She turned me _into a squirrel_."

 

"But not forever."

 

"You have a really freaky idea of what good is, Gerard Arthur Way."

 

They bicker all the way back up to Gerard's room and then they watch the rest of Pingu. Kids’ shows are fucking weird.

 

Mikey comes back and joins them just as they're debating starting watching from the beginning so Gerard can see the episodes he missed, and squirms his way onto Gerard's side of the bed. Gerard hands over a pillow silently so Mikey doesn't lean his bony chin on Gerard's arm. 

 

"So, I think Frankie stole the cake from _The Great British Baking Show_. One of the crew bakers was real upset that animals got into her demo technical bake. Did you know they call it _Bake Off_ here?" Mikey waits a beat, looking at Frank. "You found the old lady?"

 

"How'd you know?" Gerard is sure their telepathy isn't _that_ good.

 

"No tail." Mikey smiles.

 

"Shh, I'm watching this." Frankie flaps his hands at Gerard and Mikey and they all silently watch until the episode credits roll. 

 

"So, as I was going to tell you before Frank started imposing bus TV rules on your bed, Ray's down in the kitchen learning to make Sachertorte. We should probably go and, like, clap and shit in about 20 minutes."

 

"Umm."Gerard looks at Mikey, questioningly.

 

"To give him long enough to finish it, but not long enough to think too hard about it."

 

"Quiet!" Frank flaps his hands at them again. "I've downloaded the next season and we can get half an episode in before we need to go and see how good of a baker Ray is." 

 

Ray, not at all unexpectedly, is an _excellent_ baker. Ray, when he's focussed on something, is super precise and excellent at following instructions. He's also fucking coated in flour and sugar and chocolate, but that doesn't stop Frank hugging the shit out of him. 

 

"It's so shiny!" Gerard reaches out towards the glossy perfection of the finished cake, and only just avoids leaving a fingerprint on it when Mikey grabs his wrist. 

 

"Gee." Mikey shakes his head. 

 

"I made practice one." Ray nods over towards another cake sitting near the window. "You guys can have that if you want."

 

"Ray you are the fucking _boss_ of cake." Frankie is not letting go of Ray, but he does kind of crab-walk them over toward the cake. "You are all fucking bosses."

 

Ray goes pink. "Eh, you'd have done it for me. And I think Cake Boss is probably copyright anyway."

 

 

 

Ray's practice cake is _amazing_ , and the crew baker is super happy to let Ray's real attempt go on the show. Ray’s ears may never not be pink again.

 

Frank is very... careful for the next few days, and then just when he remembers and always to old ladies, but even when his quintessential Frankness shines through he doesn't sprout a tail. Gerard isn't even relieved, not really, because he _knew_ that Frank's heart was good, but he joins in the teasing anyway, because, of fucking course.

 

They watch the show, months later, through some kind of magic connection to the BBC website that Mikey's hooked up from his living room, and they get to know the bakers week by week (everyone has a different favorite and no one is as good as sachertorte as Ray) ... and they get to know the squirrel with the enormous balls, too, and Frank believes them for at _least_ five minutes when they tell him that they're all traumatised from seeing so much of _him_... By way of revenge he buys them all the Pingu boxset for Christmas - how he even _found_ it in region free, Gerard doesn't know, but he's actually developed kind of a fondness for the angry, iron-wielding, Dad penguin, and Frank insists on several watch-parties for it (Ray brings excellent cake to them. Ray is _so_ the Cake Boss) so as revenges go, it's probably the nicest one Gerard's ever been subjected to. 

 

Gerard would never say it out loud, but he likes it the best when he doesn't need to think about the rules for not worrying about Frank, when all he has to do is look over and watch Frank wipe chocolate icing off his face on the other end of the couch and know he's safe.

**Author's Note:**

> the H/T to [The One Where They're All... Ducks?](http://sunsetmog-fics.livejournal.com/25758.html) is entirely intentional.
> 
> [Pingu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOwRMVgoZpE) is very, very, strange. I once watched the show for 2 hours as a student. There were about 30 of us in the room and we were all sober. It defies explanation...
> 
>  
> 
> [The Bake Off Squirrel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSx4d075tQM)


End file.
